


Ghosts and Friends (and Hallucinations)

by bailor



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Also he makes poor choices, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Hallucinations, M/M, Tony can't sleep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-06 01:02:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bailor/pseuds/bailor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark can't sleep. And then, Tony Stark doesn't want to sleep.</p>
<p>Or: Tony's never been lonely, but he doesn't actually mind seeing things that aren't there as much as he should. Hallucinations are totally normal, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts and Friends (and Hallucinations)

**Author's Note:**

> The timing of this story is based on the timeline found here: http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/2012/05/13/a-marvel-cinematic-universe-timeline-2-0/

**1977**  

_March_  

Tony is six years old, and he has an engine. It’s a really cool engine; he thinks it could maybe power a motorcycle. His little face smudged with oil and grease, his hands black with the stuff (but he knows better than to put his fingers in his mouth, because his mother caught him doing that once and there was a lot of yelling). 

When he shows his father, the man nods gruffly and arranges some press on it (because “the world should see that Stark men are geniuses from the beginning. It’s a little small, but they can get an angle to make it look more impressive.”). His mother offers him a thin-lipped smile, and brushes her hand absently over his temple. 

Jarvis gives him a cookie, though, so there’s that. 

And Tony isn’t lonely, he really isn’t. Jarvis doesn’t say anything if he catches him talking to imaginary friends (besides, he doesn’t _have_ imaginary friends, those are for pathetic babies, and Tony isn’t even a kid, let alone a pathetic baby). 

Still, he dismantles the engine. 

* 

**1988**  

_May_  

Tony is seventeen and bored and rebellious, and it’s not a very good combination. He’s just come from graduation, where he stood still and smiled pretty for the pictures and even shook his old man’s hand (he briefly wonders which newspaper will be running that picture). His father made some snide comment about MIT not being a total waste, and his mother got that strained look on her face, so Tony excused himself to spare them all the unpleasantness of a congratulatory dinner. 

Now, he is very drunk, working on getting drunker, and there is a very pretty blonde sticking her tongue in his ear. Rhodey left an hour ago (“Congratulations, man, but I have to get up early – you know I’m shipping out next week.”). And there are people, there are a lot of people, in his apartment, and he’s glad his workshop (the shitty basement) is locked up tight. 

The blonde (is her name Amber? No, he thinks it might be Anna) arches into him very suggestively, and her hands brush over his fly, and he thinks it’s time to move to his bedroom. 

When she’s asleep, and he’s still drunk, and most of his “friends” have wandered off for the night, he allows himself to entertain the idea that he might be a little lonely. 

Two weeks later, Dummy is born, and that bot’s a pain in the ass, but at least he’s not talking to the walls anymore. 

* 

**1991**  

_December_  

His parents are dead. 

He doesn’t really feel very much, and he knows he should feel _something_. Instead, he wonders absently what they were doing in Long Island. Dinner, maybe (no, his parents didn’t go on dates) or shopping (as if Howard Stark would bother to shop with his wife). It doesn’t matter, though. 

They’re dead either way. 

Rhodey goes with him to the funeral. With Rhodey on one side, Obie at the other, Tony gives a very moving speech about his mother and his father and he doesn’t remember a word of it after, he’s so drunk. Obie assures him it was very well-received. And after the funeral, Rhodey goes back to the Air Force, and Obie has a company to run, so Tony’s back in his apartment. 

Dummy’s okay company, really, for a shitty pile of circuitry built on an hour’s sleep, a liter of rum, and a generous amount of self-hate. Even if he can’t talk back, Tony feels less crazy as he rambles at the little bot, biting out insults and threats. 

His day-to-day life hasn’t changed much. He occasionally sends over designs to Stark Industries (to Obie’s delight) and he works on his own, less spectacular projects. (Toys, junk, but it keeps him busy). Rhodey doesn’t call much. Obie calls at the same time every week, but they talk about work and Tony’s designs and plans to move out to New York when he takes over the company. 

He isn’t lonely. 

* 

**1992**  

_May_  

Tony turns 21, and now he’s in charge of Stark Industries. He can’t stomach the thought of moving out to New York, so he forces the entire company to move out to sunny Malibu. Obie bitches, at first, but when Tony shows him the results of five days’ work in his own workshop, he seems to get over his resentment of the west coast. 

He isn’t sure how anyone could resent the west coast, but whatever. 

His house is too big and empty. The beautiful view doesn’t mean much when he’s never upstairs. His many conquests – mostly women, but there’s the occasional male Calvin Klein underwear model thrown into the mix – seem to like his house just fine. 

He builds Dummy a friend (Butterfingers) and then he builds them both another friend (You). The AI is a little more advanced both times. Finally, after an abysmal week, he decides to create a more advanced, intelligent AI. It takes about seven days, but when he wakes up, a droll voice asks if he would like to know the weather outside. 

And now he has someone to talk to, even if he isn’t technically human. 

* 

**1999**  

_November_  

He’s gone through four PAs in the last three months, and apparently that’s unacceptable. Obie made a big stink about it when he fired the last one, but if she couldn’t remember he liked his coffee _black_ then she clearly wasn’t cut out for the job. Tony’s meeting with three prospects today (if he has to have a PA – and apparently he does – he damn well better get to pick). 

The first is an overeager brunette, who clearly has heard that she needs to show a lot of cleavage to grab Tony’s attention. That might be true of Tony Stark, playboy, but Tony just wants a PA that can remember to bring him coffee and leave him to his work. (Although sleeping with her would be pleasant as well). 

The next is a redhead named Virginia Potts and the first thing she does is inform him his fly is down. 

He hires her without asking her any questions that pertain to the job, a fact that clearly exasperates her. Still, she shows up the next day, dressed in a suit, with a mug of black coffee and a list of obligations he’s been avoiding. 

Two weeks later, he finally admits she’s going to be around for awhile. 

(And now he has Jarvis and Ms. Virginia “Pepper” Potts and Rhodey so he can’t be lonely). 

*

**2009**

_May_  

There is an explosion and soldiers are dying and everything is loud. A missile lands next to him and it has his fucking name on it. 

The last thing he thinks before everything goes black is that his chest really fucking hurts. 

* 

_August_  

Everything is a blur, at first. His skin is burnt raw and every muscle aches and his thoughts are a mess. Rhodey takes him to Germany, where the doctors fuss over him and prod at his chest and murmur in hushed tones. He doesn’t bother trying to eavesdrop, and logically he can see that’s abnormal. 

He only sleeps when they drug him. 

The CIA comes, the NSA comes, and he has long, boring conversations with stern men in suits. He doesn’t tell them anything of importance, and he is pleased to discover that he’s as good at deflection as he remembers. They leave frustrated, and Rhodey gives him _that_ look and Tony doesn’t care nearly as much as he should. 

Sometimes, he sees Yinsen out of the corner of his eye. 

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is one of his official diagnoses, but he won’t go to his sessions with psychologists, and eventually they stop trying to make him. They keep him in Germany for two and a half weeks. 

“I’m going home.” Tony informs Rhodey when he comes to visit one morning. Before his friend can argue, he holds up a hand. “No, seriously, I’m going home. Germany sucks, I’m bored out of my mind, there’s no medical reason to keep me.” 

“Tony, you’re not-” Rhodey begins, but the billionaire cuts him off. 

“I’m not, what? Stable? Because my chart says I’m stable. Ready? Well, I don’t think _you_ get to decide that, do you?” He raises a critical eyebrow. He knows his friend wants to argue, wants to demand he stay and attend his psych sessions. But Tony is a stubborn bastard, and by the end of the day he’s secured his trip home for in the morning. 

He pretends he doesn’t see the assistant from the cave watching from the corner. 

* 

Tony Stark can’t sleep. He tries, he really does. He curls in his bed, the thousand-ply sheets soft and gentle against his skin, still raw from the desert sun. He draws in unsatisfying breaths (will breathing ever be satisfying again, with that _thing_ lodged in his chest?), he forces himself to run equations until he’s too tired to think. 

And the moment his body is lulled into sleep, he is awake, a scream dying on his lips, the desert sand beneath his nails and stale, dirty water tainting his lungs. Within a week, his bedroom is uninhabited once more, and he sequesters himself to the workshop. 

He is no stranger to sleep deprivation. He’s used to the ache of his muscles, the faint tremors in his hands, the faint pulse of headaches behind his eyes. The hallucinations, though – that’s a new one. 

He spends his time working on the armor, designing and redesigning gauntlets and repulsors. And if Jarvis notices that he’s speaking to a man that isn’t there (a man that’s _dead_ ), he doesn’t say anything. 

The thing is, Tony knows Yinsen isn’t there. He does. He knows he’s hallucinating, he knows the hallucinations would stop if he would let himself sleep. So he practically mainlines his coffee, and he has someone to talk to, and things aren’t so bad except that things are really fucking awful. 

Pepper is in and out of the workshop, but she doesn’t know what to say, so she never stays. Rhodey’s got his panties in a twist because Tony refuses to reconsider the whole weapons thing (Yinsen assures him that his best friend will get over it, that Tony’s making the right choice). 

Tony doesn’t sleep. 

* 

_September_

He can only go so long before he burns out. So, every four or five days, he sleeps, and he’s so exhausted he can’t dream, so that’s nice. And then he doesn’t see Yinsen for a couple of days, which is okay. 

Tony Stark doesn’t do lonely. 

“Mr. Stark.” Pepper’s voice interrupts his thoughts, and he turns to her with that flashy, cocky grin he’s so proud of. Her eyes immediately dart down to his chest (they always do, now, after he made her help him change the reactor. He doesn’t mind as much as he should). “I was wondering if you were planning on eating today.” 

He can hear the faint tone of exasperation behind her professional sheen, and he has no doubts that he will, in fact, be leaving the workshop to eat. 

“Jarvis tattled on me, didn’t he?” Tony sounds amused, even to his own ears, as he spins a screwdriver in his hand. Dummy whirs beside him, the mechanical claw nudging him slightly in confusion, and he rolls his eyes. “Stop, you useless thing.” 

“Jarvis informed me that you required assistance remembering human necessities, like food and sleep.” Pepper rolls her eyes, moving through the workshop. She’s not comfortable here, exactly, but she doesn’t seem to mind the evidence of his madness. Tony thinks that’s sort of sweet. “So, would you like to come upstairs and join me for lunch? Happy brought back takeout.” 

“How is it that you manage to boss me around so much?” Tony muses, dropping the screwdriver and wiping his hands on a filthy rag. “Seriously, I’m curious. Because, last time I checked, I signed your paychecks.” 

“Mr. Stark, I can’t get you to sign forms from Stark Industries. With all due respect? You don’t sign my paychecks.” Pepper is grinning despite herself. 

“Not literally, Pepper, honestly, it’s like you’ve never heard of a metaphor.” Tony grouses as she steers him up the stairs. He ignores the little flare of panic in his chest (he hates leaving the workshop, where things make sense and there is nothing but numbers and machinery). 

“Mr. Stark, that was a figure of speech, not a metaphor.” Pepper corrects sweetly, pushing him toward the couch. And, sure enough, Happy has three bags from that Chinese takeout place Tony likes so much (and for someone that loves greasy food as much as he does, he really isn’t very good at remembering to eat it). 

And so they eat and Tony is okay, because Tony is always okay. It’s kind of nice to squabble with Pepper over the remote (she thinks his taste in TV shows is immature) and fling lo mein at Happy (who isn’t sure if he should retaliate or just take it). Maybe he’ll sleep tonight, and wake up tomorrow, and he’ll have his shit figured out. 

That night, he doesn’t sleep and Yinsen shows up around two AM, so at least he’s in good company. 

* 

“You’re the one that told me not to waste my life.” Tony rolls his eyes as he flexes his hand in the gauntlet, his mind already a million miles away, considering possibilities, opportunities. “So stop bitching at me for how I do it.” 

“We’re not in a cave anymore, Stark. You are perfectly capable of following proper safety protocols.” Yinsen seems annoyed, slightly, by Tony’s cavalier attitude with his health and safety. Tony thinks he’s being a pussy about the whole thing, in all honesty. 

“Capable, yeah, but that’s boring and it’ll slow me down.” Tony considers the repulsor with a grin. He’s managed one successful “flight” (in which he barely managed to hover and almost ruined several cars). He runs equations in his mind, considering how the thrust will need to be adjusted to support the metallic suit, how exactly to route the power from the reactor. 

“Do you honestly trust Stane?” Yinsen asks after a long moment of silence. And Tony knows this is his subconscious (because Yinsen is dead, he died to give Tony another chance, and he can’t allow himself to continue along that train of thought). 

“Of course I do.” Tony fixes him with a critical look. “He’s always had my best interests in mind. Why wouldn’t I trust Obie?” Yinsen snorts under his breath, and Tony rolls his eyes. “Look, you do not get to fill me with doubt. I don’t care that you’re a figment of my imagination, don’t you take that tone with me.” 

Dummy whirs curiously beside him, tapping at the gauntlet. Tony rolls his eyes, but lowers his arm to allow the bot access. As he makes excited whirs and chirps, poking at the metal, he fixes Yinsen with a curious stare. “So. If you have so much insight, why am I hallucinating _you_?” 

“Stark, we both know you don’t need me to answer that question.” Yinsen grins at him, a small, wry smirk, and there is amusement in the accented voice. Tony gives him a half-grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, drumming his fingers absently on the metal workbench. 

“Tony? Are you down here?” Pepper pokes her head in. “Obie’s on his way over.” Tony glances over his shoulder, immediately removing the gauntlet from his hand. 

“Right. On my way up, Pep.” 

* 

_October_  

“Gulmira. Funny, isn’t it?” Yinsen doesn’t sound amused. Tony doesn’t blame him. He hasn’t slept in six days, and he can’t sleep now. He’s livid, he can feel his blood boiling, and it’s all he can do to pace downstairs rather than get back in the suit and go attack Obie himself. 

He tries to tell himself the feeling will pass. 

“Yeah. Really fucking funny, hysterical.” Tony snaps out, his hands clenched into fists at his side. 

“Stark-” 

“Don’t.” He doesn’t recognize his voice as he whips around on his hallucination. “Just – don’t. I don’t need a fucking hallucination born out of a mess of guilt and pathetic daddy issues telling me what to do. I don’t. So fuck off, yeah? How ‘bout you just fuck off, Yinsen!” 

The man just watches him, his face impassive, his gaze intelligent and calculated. And Tony hates him, almost as much as he hates himself, because maybe he wouldn’t give a shit if not for Yinsen. He tries to remind himself that he saved lives today – the haunted, terrified expressions of children flash behind his eyes – but all he can think about is the fact that he didn’t save Yinsen’s children. 

That he may as well have killed them himself. 

Pepper is upstairs, trying valiantly to convince herself that she did not catch him in a suit of armor, that he didn’t run off to Gulmira and confront terrorists, that things are normal. Tony doesn’t really blame her. He’d probably do the same, if he weren’t, well. 

“Stark, you did the right thing.” Yinsen’s voice is clear in the room. Tony pauses, glancing over his shoulder, lips twisted into some awful grin. 

“Thanks, but it doesn’t mean all that much, coming from what it essentially me.” He shrugs. Yinsen grins, and Tony pretends not to see it, because if even his subconscious is going to give him shit, he might actually have a few self-esteem issues. But he doesn’t have time for a mental breakdown right now, so he mentally pencils that in for never, and get back to the problem at hand. 

Which is, Obie’s working against him, his tech is still ending up in the wrong fucking hands, and he’s hallucinating a dead man from a cave in Afghanistan. 

He could fix that last one, but, well – Yinsen’s a good assistant, even when he’s not technically real. 

* 

Tony enjoys fixing the armor, humming under his breath as he tinkers. Yinsen offers suggestions, and they’re good suggestions, really, so he implements them and pretends this isn’t fucked up. After all, he’s been working with Jarvis for years, and that’s not exactly a normal relationship. 

Eventually, Pepper responds to his annoying calls for her to come downstairs. 

“Hey.” He turns to glance at her, dropping his screwdriver beside him. “You busy? You mind if I send you on an errand?” Yinsen rolls his eyes out of his the corner of his eye, but he’s pretty good at ignoring him when he needs to. “Need you to go to my office and hack into my mainframe. You’re gonna track all the recent shipping manifests, this is a locked chip. This’ll get you in.” 

Pepper glances down at the small device, a frown tugging at her lips. And he hates it when he makes her frown (it seems to be more and more often these days, but he’s at a loss as to how to stop). 

“It’s probably under executive files. If not, they put it on a ghost drive, in which case you need to look for the lowest numerical.” He turns back, his mind already back to his work on the suit, because it needs to be ready. He knows it needs to be ready. 

“And what do you plan to do with this information if I bring it back here?” Pepper is being careful, and he hates it when Pepper is careful with him. 

“Same drill.” Tony’s voice is steel. “They’ve been dealing under the table, and I’m gonna stop ‘em. I’m gonna find my weapons and destroy them.” 

“Tony.” Pepper glances away, frustration leaking into her voice. He studiously avoids Yinsen’s knowing gaze. “You know that I would help you with anything, but – I cannot help you if you’re gonna start all of this again.” 

“There is _nothing_ except this.” Tony snaps, glancing over his shoulder. “There is no art opening. There is no benefit. There is nothing to sign.” He spins to face her, and he knows the exhaustion is evident on his face. The exhaustion and anger and pain and he can’t be bothered to hide it, not this time. “There is the next mission. And nothing else.” 

“Is that so?” Pepper’s jaw is tight. “Well, then, I quit.” She tosses the little drive on his work bench and turns to leave, her head held high and proud. 

“You stood by my side all this years while I reaped the benefits of destruction, and now that I’m trying to protect the people _I_ put in harm’s way, you’re gonna walk out?” He demands, incredulous. 

“You’re gonna kill yourself, Tony.” She pauses in the doorway and turns to face him. “I’m not gonna be a part of it.” 

“I shouldn’t be alive.” He sits, suddenly tired and overwhelmed. And he is willing himself to stop, to find some other way to get what he needs, but he presses on. “Unless it was for a reason.” His eyes dart to Yinsen, standing in the corner of his lab. _‘Don’t waste it… Don’t waste your life, Stark.’_ “I’m not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know what… I have to do.” Yinsen steps closer, into view. “And I know in my heart that it’s right.” 

Pepper lets out a soft sigh and steps back to the table, snatching the small USB. She pauses, debates something, and then glances at him. “You’re all I have, too, you know.” 

And he is smiling as she leaves, ignoring the soft chuckle of the invisible man in his lab. 

* 

Obie’s dead. 

Tony can’t quite get used to that idea. 

Obie wanted to kill him, so there’s that. Obie took the arc reactor  from his chest with a grin. Obie was plotting against him the whole fucking time. 

Obie’s the reason he has this hunk of machinery in his chest. 

Tony’s good at putting on a happy face. He’s watching the press conference again (Pepper had been furious, Agent Boring had attempted to give him a lecture, and Rhodey called to chew him out, so overall a successful public appearance). A grin twitches at his lips. 

“I am Iron Man.” He murmurs with the TV. Yinsen makes an annoyed noise across the room, and Tony shoots him an amused glance. “You’re the one that told me not to waste my life.” 

* 

Tony sleeps, now. It’s fitful, and he has nightmares, but he forces himself to sleep. And if he misses Yinsen, he certainly can’t admit it, not even to himself. 

It’s stupid to miss a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation.

**Author's Note:**

> That brings us up to the end of the first movie. This will go through, and past, The Avengers but I don't know if it'll include Iron Man 3 yet (because, you know, that doesn't come out until May). Eventually it will be Steve/Tony.


End file.
